Equivariant Log Concavity and Representation Stability

We expand upon the notion of equivariant log concavity and make equivariant log concavity conjectures for Orlik–Solomon algebras of matroids, Cordovil algebras of oriented matroids, and Orlik–Terao algebras of hyperplane arrangements. In the case of the Coxeter arrangement for the Lie algebra $\mathfrak{s}\mathfrak{l}_n$, we exploit the theory of representation stability to give computer-assisted proofs of these conjectures in low degree.

Homological Stability for Spaces of Commuting Elements in Lie Groups

In this paper, we study homological stability for spaces $\textrm{Hom}({{\mathbb{Z}}}^n,G)$ of pairwise commuting $n$-tuples in a Lie group $G$. We prove that for each $n\geqslant 1$, these spaces satisfy rational homological stability as $G$ ranges through any of the classical sequences of compact, connected Lie groups, or their complexifications. We prove similar results for rational equivariant homology, for character varieties, and for the infinite-dimensional analogues of these spaces, $\textrm{Comm}(G)$ and $B_{\textrm{com}} G$, introduced by Cohen–Stafa and Adem–Cohen–Torres-Giese, respectively. In addition, we show that the rational homology of the space of unordered commuting $n$-tuples in a fixed group $G$ stabilizes as $n$ increases. Our proofs use the theory of representation stability—in particular, the theory of $\textrm{FI}_W$-modules developed by Church–Ellenberg–Farb and Wilson. In all of the these results, we obtain specific bounds on the stable range, and we show that the homology isomorphisms are induced by maps of spaces.

Stability in the high-dimensional cohomology of congruence subgroups

We prove a representation stability result for the codimension-one cohomology of the level-three congruence subgroup of $\mathbf{SL}_{n}(\mathbb{Z})$. This is a special case of a question of Church, Farb, and Putman which we make more precise. Our methods involve proving finiteness properties of the Steinberg module for the group $\mathbf{SL}_{n}(K)$ for $K$ a field. This also lets us give a new proof of Ash, Putman, and Sam’s homological vanishing theorem for the Steinberg module. We also prove an integral refinement of Church and Putman’s homological vanishing theorem for the Steinberg module for the group $\mathbf{SL}_{n}(\mathbb{Z})$.